Is This Synesthesia?

Cassidy’s ears, skillfully lovely yet not quite of Earth,

Swivel like the most advanced satellite dishes

To hear the good ghosts that rustle in the night,

As if cloaked in fine-spun gold.

He sniffs the delicate delight of their healing perfume.

O he sees the benevolence of the thoughts of the good ghosts

That haunt our room and clumsily try to extend help to us

Through the bewildering knots and knots of dimensions

That distance us from these spirits reluctant to deceive.

He sniffs fear and love in the room like aromatic candles.

He hears and inhales good and evil

Though no evil comes from the fumbling ghosts, our friends,

Who haunt us and whom we haunt.

Cassidy attempts to instruct us all 

At least to read lips, seen or unseen, spirit or human.

But even for Cassidy this teaching is not easy,

He who hears, sees, smells so well

And always knows where float the glow and perfume

Of benevolence, in whatever world we are in or believe we are in.

He can hear and smell clouds in their joy swelling

To fill all skies.

He can hear their tenderness blossom like mountains.

He hears more modest clouds move through blueness as if they

Were simultaneously foam, boat, wave, and sail.

Even upon cessation of the rain,

Cassidy hears grass continue to swooningly sip

While worms shape alphabets through the moistened soil

In their invigorated wiggling.

Cassidy hears birds become alert with the knowledge

Of their fulfillment.

The muzzles of daffodils blare out for my cat

The rejoicing gold of their glow!

But Cassidy in quietude will hear dawn yawning

Like an abyss that blesses;

And he will always hear twilight just begin

To feel the sensitive swell and dip

Of the horizon.

He can hear me smile.

He sniffs my fingertips to get perfect knowledge of my heart.

He hears my footsteps approaching his goodness

Down the slightly painful miles of cement.

When I see him in the dignity of his duty

Peering at supposedly unpopulated air

And hearing salubrious sounds unheard by me

I know he is haunting the good-hearted

But imperfectly-skilled ghosts who are trying to help, trying to help,

And whom my admirable animal

Is trying to guide, trying to guide.        

© Stephen Margulies, 2015

Green-eyed Abyssinian
Photo by Petekurt
from Wikimedia Commons